F1 Coverage - The Verdict: 2019 Season

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It wouldn't be the most surprising thing in the world if someone had looked at F1 and went "the biggest teams have so much power there's no real way to reform this properly without fundamentally breaking what we paid for".

Liberty were foolish enough to think they could change this with a new logo & a few more social media posts though. And more races (which nobody wants). That's what I dislike about Liberty's approach. And I'm staggered that they're acting all surprised when they couldn't turn it around in a year. Did they not do any research into F1 at all?

F1's fundamental problem was not the minimal social media, it was the inequalities in the revenue structure & technical regulations and influence of certain teams that led those teams to dominate the sport too heavily and make the championship less exciting to watch. All the social media posts and fan events in the world won't fix the problem of the racing fundamentally being flawed.

F1's fundamental problem was not the minimal social media, it was the inequalities in the revenue structure & technical regulations and influence of certain teams that led those teams to dominate the sport too heavily and make the championship less exciting to watch. All the social media posts and fan events in the world won't fix the problem of the racing fundamentally being flawed.

I don't disagree, I'm just saying that in order to fix that they would likely have to tell the teams "these are the rules, like it or lump it", and then see how many they lose. It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if they did that,but if you've paid a lot of money for the sport and then realise to fix it you'll have to take a gamble that you might chase away half the big teams then I can see the reluctance. Although the fudged compromises won't work any better in the long run.

But I think it's way too early to decide that Liberty have given up on that or their investment. And the fans might not want more races (a reasonable viewpoint) but most people who buy the sport probably will. If Liberty hadn't bought it CVC and Bernie would have pushed for more races anyway.

Yes, I think a few of us did going by previous posts. Another 'curate's egg' of a Rolex24, lots of caution periods (which I personally don't like, but it's the American way) and rain stopped play on Sunday. During the stoppages I listened to the audio stream, no point in watching people standing around getting very wet. Even though I'm not a huge fan of the Daytona roval, I enjoyed the action when there was green flag running, it was an unpredictable race.

It's quite a long interview with Dean Locke, mostly about what happened in 2017 from a TV point of view, and what they plan to change in 2018. He talks about adding in the graphics to cover up the Halo, along with some changes to camera angles:

The big problem was that TV camera positions are prescribed in great detail in the FIA technical regulations, and it was not possible to adjust their locations within the season. We were trying to devise a way to change the onboards, but that takes time," says Locke. "You saw different angles already last year and there'll be more of that in 2019 - you saw the [Fernando] Alonso face shot, for instance, in Abu Dhabi. We ran a couple on the Renaults last year, a couple on the Toro Rossos, just slightly better angles, so you're looking at it more in line with the driver. There's been lots of development. The boys were busy over the winter. The halo is still there, but you'll be looking through it a lot more. We're just trying to show how those drivers are wrestling those cars around. There's still a limited field. Inside a rally car you can see a great deal of the effort and what the driver's doing. It's a little bit more restricted for us, because they're in a small cockpit. They're driving their socks off in these cars and it's hard to get that across."

He also says there'll be more of the archive replays where applicable, whenever there's a "lull" in the race, and also says that they have weekly meetings with the broadcasters now.

And on camera angles:

"There's a big push for 2019 to reflect the speed of the sport. There's a rethink on all camera positions. If you're in the grandstand the cars look incredible, don't they? Camera angles, or lenses, can make them look not so dramatic and not quite as quick. So we looked at different ways to do that, a few little tricks. We've always been good at doing whip-pans to show the high speed of the cars, making them look a little more edgy in places. There were some tracks last year - in Japan for instance - where we really highlighted where these cars are good."

And finally pre-season testing (nothing of note to say really):

This year for the first time F1 will provide proper coverage of Barcelona testing. It won't be easy to make four days of continuous running exciting, especially given that teams always want to hide their new kit. But the launches and first runs of the new cars early on the Monday morning will be quite a show.

"Yeah, we'll be all over that!" says Locke. "We're taking time to work out how we're going to do it. You don't know what set-up the cars are running, so you can't necessarily compare eggs with eggs. So we're looking at making it a bit more entertaining.

"The teams are there to test, they're not there to be filmed, but we hope we can work with them to try to get a bit more."

Barcelona will also allow Locke and his colleagues to trial some new ideas as the organisation continues to hone its skills.

There's nothing really juicy in there at all really. Basically just continuing their approach in 2018 really.

To be fair, the BSkyB deal at least was signed before Liberty took over the sport. So it's not like they can do anything about that unless they want to get sued and/or fork out millions. Maybe FOPA should offer to fund such contract terminations if they're that concerned about.

Well it's in name only, the Sauber management are still the same, and Alfa are still describing it as a "collaboration" with Sauber. I wonder if Peter Sauber still has a stake in the team or not. But it is a sad day nonetheless.

Well it's in name only, the Sauber management are still the same, and Alfa are still describing it as a "collaboration" with Sauber. I wonder if Peter Sauber still has a stake in the team or not. But it is a sad day nonetheless.

I think that's why it's so sad. Because it is basically still the Sauber team. The Alfa thing is just a badge, a logo, a rebrand, a marketing gimmick designed to make you think Alfa Romeo are a genuine bona fide constructor. To get that famous name in they chucked one out which isn't necessarily as romanticised but has a solid legacy behind it.

Well it's in name only, the Sauber management are still the same, and Alfa are still describing it as a "collaboration" with Sauber. I wonder if Peter Sauber still has a stake in the team or not. But it is a sad day nonetheless.

I think that's why it's so sad. Because it is basically still the Sauber team. The Alfa thing is just a badge, a logo, a rebrand, a marketing gimmick designed to make you think Alfa Romeo are a genuine bona fide constructor. To get that famous name in they chucked one out which isn't necessarily as romanticised but has a solid legacy behind it.

Well it's in name only, the Sauber management are still the same, and Alfa are still describing it as a "collaboration" with Sauber. I wonder if Peter Sauber still has a stake in the team or not. But it is a sad day nonetheless.

I think that's why it's so sad. Because it is basically still the Sauber team. The Alfa thing is just a badge, a logo, a rebrand, a marketing gimmick designed to make you think Alfa Romeo are a genuine bona fide constructor. To get that famous name in they chucked one out which isn't necessarily as romanticised but has a solid legacy behind it.

Like 1Malaysia F1 Team/Lotus F1/Team Lotus/Caterham

But even worse, because at least that was basically a new team they assigned a random historic brand to, in a desperate attempt to give it some credibility.

Here we've effectively killed a solid, respectable, credible brand of it's own right just so we can have a sexy historic name, probably for only a handful of years before that money tap gets turned off again.

Popped by FOM's new London HQ today. It was presumably closed over the weekend (it's a floor in an office block basically, you wouldn't know it was there if it weren't for "Formula 1" being on one of the floor listings behind the tower block's reception desk). There's a nice, reasonably-priced restaurant on the ground floor though.

Popped by FOM's new London HQ today. It was presumably closed over the weekend (it's a floor in an office block basically, you wouldn't know it was there if it weren't for "Formula 1" being on one of the floor listings behind the tower block's reception desk). There's a nice, reasonably-priced restaurant on the ground floor though.

Stalker !!

(actually I "had" lunch with Chase Carey just before Christmas - well he was on the next table over anyway)

Yep. Loved the fact that the whole race could be streamed without interruptions. Watched* most of it, except when I was asleep! The 'Fernando factor' must have brought a lot of people in and he didn't disappoint.

*ie: just left it on so could listen while attending to important elements like food, getting clean etc. and rush to screen if the excitement level was raised.

Popped by FOM's new London HQ today. It was presumably closed over the weekend (it's a floor in an office block basically, you wouldn't know it was there if it weren't for "Formula 1" being on one of the floor listings behind the tower block's reception desk). There's a nice, reasonably-priced restaurant on the ground floor though.

Unlike the FOM base in Biggin Hill, which has a big F1 logo out front!

How does FOM split its organisation across its London and Biggin Hill offices? From the vacancies advertised I can’t see a clear divide between what is done where…?

Tech & production stuff (mostly related to the race broadcasts) are done at Biggin Hill, whereas other stuff (such as online/social etc.) is done at London. But i'm sure in some areas there's a bit of an exception to the rule.